Roasted Capsicum and Beetroot Salad

From Moroccan, The Australian Women’s Weekley, ACP Books, 2011.

Despite the cold weather, a salad is always a good accompaniment for a meal.

For this salad I wrapped some beetroot in foil and placed them in a 200ªC oven. On the same baking dish I placed a red capsicum and two yellow bullnose chillies. After about half an hour the capsicum and chillies had softened sufficiently to be taken out and placed in a plastic bag until cool. The beetroot had another half hour before they were cooked.

When the peppers had cooled they were skinned and seeded and cut into edible portions. The beetroot when cool were topped and tailed and the skin removed. The beetroot were cut into eighths.

Now I placed some rocket on a serving plate. This was not called for in the recipe but I like to have a few greens with a salad. The capsicum, chillies and beetroot were placed on the rocket base then sprinkled with some chopped red onion, parsley and the rind of preserved lemon.  I sprinkled on some salt and freshly ground black pepper. Over it all was drizzled some olive oil and a little lemon juice.

A salad always goes down well and this one looked good and tasted to match. The little touches of preserved lemon peel were especially good.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Roasted Beetroot and Capsicum Salad

From Moroccan, The Australian Women’s Weekly, ACP Books, 2011.

I wrapped some beetroot in foil and placed them in a 220ºC oven with a red capsicum and a yellow capsicum. After half an hour they were ready. 

The beetroot, peeled and sliced into quarters, and the capsicum, peeled, seeded and sliced, went into a bowl. On top of these were sprinkled a little red onion finely chopped, some chopped parsley and about a tablespoon of chopped preserved lemon peel. 

The juice of half a lemon went over this and, with a little dribble of olive oil, it was ready to eat.

Sometimes it’s good to get away from the salads that have lots of greens. This salad worked well. The sweetness of the beetroot and the capsicums was contrasted against the sourness of the lemon and the crunch of the onion.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔✔

Cooked Salad

From Moroccan, Lorenz Books, 1999.

I took out the large frying pan and placed it on the stove with 4 tablespoons of water in it. I then cut up the following salad vegetables and placed them into the pan: 2 tomatoes cut into quarters, 2 onions chopped, a Lebanese cucumber deseeded and cut into slices,  and a green capsicum cut into small pieces. The heat was turned on and once the water had reached boiling point it was turned down to simmer for 3 minutes. A lid was placed on the pan and the heat was turned off.

When the vegetables were cooled the liquid was drained off and the mixture was placed in a serving bowl. A dressing of a tablespoon of lemon juice, 3 tablespoons olive oil and one crushed garlic clove was made and poured over the salad. Salt and pepper were sprinkled on and salad was gently tossed.

It was served at room temperature. I did enjoy this salad. There was still quite a lot of crunch from the cucumber and capsicum but the flavours seemed to be a little enhanced by the little bit of cooking and because they had been standing for about an hour the juices had blended. A pleasant salad that is worth repeating. There is some left so my guess is that it may be even better the next day.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔✔

Moroccan Bread

From Moroccan, Lorenz Books, 1999.

I needed bread to go with my soup so set to work to make this Moroccan bread.

In a cup I mixed a little water with some milk to about 1/3 cup with a large pinch of sugar. I warmed this a little and added about a teaspoon of fresh yeast. I left this for 10 minutes.

I took 225g of strong bread flour. The recipe called for a mix of white and wholemeal. I used plain white but added a good handful of wheat bran. This went into a bowl with a teaspoon of salt. The yeast mixture was added to this and stirred in with about 1/2 cup of a warmed milk/water mix.

This made a soft dough which I dropped onto the floured bench. I kneaded this for about 10 minutes when it began to form into a firmer, elastic dough. I floured a baking tray and placed the dough ball onto it, pressing it down a little to flatten it somewhat. This was covered with plastic wrap which I oiled to prevent it sticking and then left it for a good hour and a half until it had risen.

It was sprinkled with sesame seeds and placed into a 200ºC oven for 10 minutes. The oven was then turned down to 150ºC and the bread cooked for another half hour.

This made a loaf sufficient for two to have with a bowl of soup. It was a well flavoured yeasty bread.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Chickpea and Parsley Soup

From Moroccan, Lorenz Books, 1999.

This slim book, 64 pages in all, was a gift a few years back and has always been a favourite though neglected a little lately. However, this night I decided I would cook a Moroccan meal: soup, bread and salad. The weather was hot and I was in the mood for something tasty but reasonably light.

I put about 120g of chickpeas in a bowl and poured boiling water over them. They then went into the microwave for 5 minutes, after which they were left to soak for about an hour. They were then placed in a saucepan and simmered for about another hour at which time they had softened. They were drained and left to cool a little. The skins were now slipped off.

I’m used to taking the skin off broad beans—a rather relaxing task if you’re not in a hurry—but skinning chickpeas was something new. It’s also somewhat pleasing, giving them a little squeeze and popping the inside out of its covering. But there was a lot of chickpeas to do.

Now an onion was chopped and a bunch of parsley. These went into a blender and were processed until quite fine. They went into a saucepan with some oil and were sautéed for a couple of minutes to soften the onion. The chickpeas followed into the pan for one or two more minutes.

Now a litre of water went in and it was all brought to the boil. A vegetarian chicken stock cube was added and the soup was taken back to a simmer and left for about 20 minutes. Salt and pepper were added and a stick blender was used to part puree the soup: I prefer to have some texture.

The juice of half a lemon was added together with a little lemon zest when it was being served.

This was a very tasty soup—and quite moreish. It’s one that I would readily make again, though possibly I might forget about skinning the chickpeas. It is easy enough to do but, for me, not really completely necessary.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Citrus Sparkler

From Moroccan, The Australian Women’s Weekly, ACP Books, 2011.

This was a simple and refreshing fruit drink.

I squeezed juice from one lemon, one orange and one grapefruit. About a quarter of a cup of caster sugar was stirred in until it had dissolved. A half teaspoon of orange blossom water was added together with a handful of mint leaves and some sliced ruby red grapefruit. Sparkling mineral water was then added at serving time.

Easy to make and a healthy change from cordial.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Minted Carrots with Goat’s Cheese

From Moroccan, The Australian Women’s Weekly, ACP Books, 2011.

I frequently commit the sin of putting two different cuisine dishes together. While some chefs seem to be dismayed whenever cuisines are not kept accurate to their source and should not be tampered with, I, as a home cook, am quite happy to mix and match whenever it pleases me.

I needed an accompaniment to go with an Italian recipe for zucchini flower fritters and, without any feeling of guilt, went looking in a book of Moroccan recipes. The recipe for minted carrots with goat’s cheese seemed as though it would suit and it was relatively easy to put together.

A bunch of Dutch carrots was simply oiled and seasoned then put on a grill for about 5 minutes. While they were cooking some cumin seeds were dry fried until fragrant.

It was then simply a matter of putting together the carrots and the cumin seeds with mint leaves and crumbled goat’s cheese.

An easy accompaniment to prepare and quite flavoursome. I did feel that the carrots were still a little on the raw side and in future if I prepare carrots this way I will give them a brief dunk in some boiling water to soften them up just a fraction. Other than that a good dish to go with.

Taste: ✔✔✔ 

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Roasted Vegetable Couscous

From Moroccan, The Australian Women’s Weekly, ACP Books, 2011.

This sounded like an easy and different vegetable dish. Vegetables had to be roasted (zucchini, red onion and carrots). Couscous had to be prepared. The vegetables were then mixed into the couscous, together with some thyme and bottled sliced red capsicum. After seasoning it was ready.

This would seem to be a good way to use leftover vegetables from a roast. Any vegetables could work well and adding bottled vegetables to it adds that extra bit of flavour.

I did find that it was a little on the dry side. I am not sure whether I am doing something wrong when I make couscous but it does tend to end up a dish which is slightly on the dry side.

We had this with tempeh burgers. They went well together though both were a bit dry so I should have made a sauce of some sort to go with them.

This small book from Women’s Weekly does prove itself to be a good buy. It’s not expensive and it does have a goodly range of different and usually fairly easy to prepare recipes. It is not a vegetarian book but there’s a large enough variety of dishes that are suitable for vegetarians.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Cucumber Salad

Cucumber and Feta Salad with Za’atar

from Moroccan, ACP Books, 2011.

My love of food from the Middle East continues and I was browsing through Moroccan when I came across this simple salad.

Moroccan is a reasonably cheap, small size book with heaps of recipes. Though small in dimension it is large in the number of pages: 400. Every double page sports a recipe on one side and a full colour photograph on the other. So far I have been well satisfied with the results from the recipes I have used.

The cucumber and feta salad was simple to make. I only had to cut the cucumber and place it in a plate. The feta was crumbed and mixed with chopped mint. Lemon juice and olive oil was drizzled over this. To finish up za’atar was sprinkled over the top.

This was a very refreshing salad. The crunchy cool cucumber went so well with the creamy, salty feta and the mint. And the musty, herby flavour of the za’atar made it a very moreish salad.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔